Someone outside laughed.
Cynthia’s hands curled at her sides.
“You spiteful little—”
“Careful,” the officer said.
Audrey returned from the kitchen looking genuinely unsettled.
“There’s no stove. No dishwasher. No appliances. How is anybody supposed to live here?”
I tilted my head.
“That sounds like a question for someone who planned to live here without permission.”
That was when Cynthia’s face truly changed. Not because she was embarrassed, although she was. Not because the neighbors were watching, although they were. She looked shaken because, for the first time, the fantasy she had carried for years had failed to become reality.
She had imagined my main bedroom becoming hers. She had imagined luncheons by the pool, Audrey filming in the closet, Nolan using the study, Preston returning whenever he pleased, the family name stretched comfortably across property they had never earned.
To them, my divorce had not been the end of a marriage.
It had been moving day.
But the house gave them nothing.
Only space.
